Bipartisan Legislators in Oregon Are Never Gonna Give You Up

Rick Astley‘s “Never Gonna Give You Up” made a surprising resurgence in the beginning of the last decade as an internet prank: sending someone a link and having it redirect to a video of the song was commonplace and, to some, hilarious. The bait-and-switch, known as “rickrolling,” was one of the first instances of an internet fad (or “meme”) breaking into the mainstream. No one was safe, as victims have included everyone from The Church of Scientology to the New York Mets, culminating in a rickroll at the 2008 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, performed by Astley himself.

As per usual, politicians are about last people to hear about anything remotely current, but the Oregon House of Representatives, apparently for lack of anything better to do, managed to successfully conspire to do a phantom rickroll during House sessions. Each of the participants was given a section of the lyrics of the song to work into their statements during legislative discussion. A video has now surfaced that splices the legislators’ segments together to form nearly the entire song. Watch below:

In other music-meets-politics news, representative Donna Edwards from Maryland quoted The White Stripes song “Effect and Cause,” while wearing a white-striped sweater, in a speech describing what would happen if there was a partial government shutdown. Watch: